The day the Lord has made

"Today is the day that the Lord has made.  Let us rejoice and be glad in it."  This is what I am reciting in my head this morning.  This is what I recite in my head nearly every morning that leads into a day I dread.  Today is the day that the Lord has made and it is the day that we put Mr. 1inamillion's ashes to rest. 

To be honest, this has been somewhere in the back of my head for nearly fourteen and a half years.  Tomorrow will be our fifteenth wedding anniversary, and October will be fifteen years since they found the first sarcoma.  I basically went from planning a wedding to wondering about a funeral.  Surely I'm not the only one that starts to wonder about funerals and death at diagnosis.  Perhaps I am, though.  I've spent the last few days laughing as much as, if not more than, I've cried and thinking that maybe....just maybe, I'm just not right. 

There will be carefully selected country gospel as the prelude and postlude.  There will be fifty pictures in the slide show.  We will hear Ronnie Milsap's "What a Difference You've Made" because with over thirty years in country music, Ronnie always remained Dane's favorite.  Jars of Clay's "Valley Song" will be performed for the Big Kid, and "Long Way Home" for me and things 1 & 2.  His ashes will be buried near my mother's grave. 

I didn't give our pastor any instruction on what I wanted him to speak, just the warning that I might interrupt him if he's getting it wrong.  After all, I did interrupt the hospital chaplain's prayer.  Multiple times.  My sister in law apparently questioned if I may have lost my mind.

Before Mr. 1inamillion's body was taken from the hospital and we all left, a hospital chaplain came in to pray with us.  And he got it wrong.  Multiple times.  In my defense, I had just spent hours coaching this man that I love to heaven.  I cheered him home.  I watched him suffer for too many years and it was finally coming to an end.  I told him how much we loved him, how much he deserved it and how we would be okay.  I told him to just run to Jesus.  Hours spent encouraging him home, and this chaplain wants to go on and on about how depressed and angry we are.  No we're not.  NO, WE'RE NOT.  That will not be what we express to our Lord and Savior over my husband.

We are sad.  We are grieving for our loss, but we can't be angry.  We can't be depressed.  There will be moments, I know, but we can't sit in it.  We will not cling to that.  If we believe what Jesus promised us about heaven for Dane and we believe God's promise in Jeremiah of his plans of a hope and a future for all of us, we must be grateful for it.  We must rejoice and be glad in it.